There are a few truisms in politics. It is obvious that the Democrats have yet to learn them. It appears necessary to take them back for a review of PoliSci 101.

Any nationwide election is multifaceted. This one was especially so. That means both the mistakes and correctives are many. I can cover them all but most of you have lives. So, I’ll touch on just the most glaring problems and their remedies.

Okay, class. There is no need to take notes. You must, however, pay attention. Truancy is its own punishment.

Friends and Enemies

Friends and enemies. There is a difference.

You dance with the one what brought you, not bought you. In 2008 Obama energized some existing constituencies. He also developed others. He had enthusiastic support from progressives, from unions, from youth, from women, from Blacks, from Latinos, from those who realized what the plutocrats and corporations had done to them and to their country.

He has spent that enthusiasm. Many of those in the groups still support him but many have put themselves at some distance. Hope and Change have been supplanted by Disappointment and Frustration.

They didn’t just decide one day to change their attitudes. It was brought about by the policies, positions and prostration of the administration. The White House and congressional delegations need to acknowledge their culpability and accept the blame. If they refuse to do so, they will lose on every point.

Not a single Republican in Congress voted for Obama. Not a single one will cooperate on the issues important to his constituency. The people that put him in office are important. Bipartisanship would be nice, but it is not the Holy Grail. It would make his job easier but its absence should not seen as his failure. Blind devotion to it will ensure his failure.

There was also the matter of trying to placate the Blue Dogs. The role they played in weakening the President was critical. They are a bunch of ideologues who actually think they understand economics and even other topics.

They love being called moderate, as though that was honorable. It may be when the center is the center but not when the entire political spectrum in this country rests on the right. It just means they are not as extreme right as some others.

The Blue Dogs paid a price. Even their constituencies didn’t see them as a recognizable political animal. They were seen as being as confused as their message. They were Republicans wearing a Democratic name tag. Of the 54 Blue Dogs, 31 are now gone and 3 others are in races too close to call. Good riddance.

Leadership

Leaders don’t always lead in the right direction. Leaders aren’t always nice. The most recent Bush was a leader. He saw himself as a leader. He told us he was a leader, or decider, or whatever. He acted as a leader.

The people accepted his claim of being a leader. Many who disagreed with him on almost every point willingly accepted his leadership.

People really, really want leadership. Admittedly, they were tired of LBJ’s and Nixon’s brands and thought they didn’t want a leader. So, both parties offered them non-leaders. The people quickly realized that they really wanted a leader. How conscious they were of what they wanted may be debated but those wants were there.

A conductor doesn’t just stand on the podium and see what happens. A conductor doesn’t expect a member of the stagehands union to thrill the audience with a virtuoso performance. He knows who to expect to contribute. He expects a concerted effort from them. He leads them.

Part of leadership is a clear objective, a clear direction, a clear message. All of that gets muddled in the attempt to bring the opposition on board. The opposition gets a free trump card by simply refusing to play. They don’t need a policy. They don’t need answers. They don’t need solutions. They just need to be seen as standing firm. Why? Because, while different leaders may follow different policies, firmness is a constant of leadership.

But, you say, we need to position ourselves and govern from the middle. Wrong. That is not the middle. It is the muddle. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln should have been advised to move to the middle. The middle is treacherous. One must be on guard on both sides. Being to the right or to the left leaves only the other side to be guarded.

Who won this election? The Republicans didn’t win by moving to the middle. They won despite making a hard right. Again, they won by displaying one aspect of leadership: standing firm. One was enough. It was one more than the Democrats evinced.

Is governing from either the right or the left the correct way? Not necessarily but it is a lot easier. And, the people will prefer it and reward it. That easier factor is particularly important when one is not very accomplished at leading. The only two accomplished leaders we have had during my lifetime were FDR and Eisenhower. Leaders are rare.

Someone will blurt out that St. Ronny was a real leader. Sorry. The Lipper was an actor. He wasn’t even very good as an actor, except he had that leader role down cold. Real leadership does require a bit of actual leading.

Talk to Them

With all of the money spent on campaign ads, it may be difficult to think that either side failed at effective communications.

It isn’t a matter of volume or money. It’s a matter of clarity. It’s a matter of selling what you have to offer or what you have done, not what your opponent says you are selling and doing. The opposition has been quite good at defining the Democrats and their products for them.

What did the voters buy? It certainly wasn’t what they thought they were buying.

The voter was concerned about the budget. They voted for politicians vowing to add a minimum of $3.5 trillion to the debt. They wanted jobs. They voted for people who stood against removing the tax incentive for moving jobs overseas.

They want to blame someone for America not being number one but voted for reduced spending on education, policemen, firemen, unemployment compensation, research on renewable energy, building a high-speed rail system, repairing roads and airports, cleaning the air you breathe and the water you drink.

They voted for politicians who want to eliminate consumer protections on credit cards, foreclosures, manipulation of the stock market and anything else the parasites want. Many voters blamed the Democrats for Bush’s and Paulson’s bailout.

They voted for people who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, put healthcare out of reach for 40 million people, allow insurance companies to refuse to cover people for a preexisting condition (btw, being a battered wife is having a preexisting condition) while placing no limit on price increases (remember those 56% increases attempted in California).

Somewhere the Democrats failed to get their message out. Other than the debt mostly caused by them and tax cuts, the Republicans had no message of their own. They wrote the Democrats’ message and fed the anger and fear. The Democrats deserved to lose but the people will pay a heavier price.

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Every time I try to get to other issues inherent in The American Dream the financial aspects keep intruding.

Even though I was on the road on a genealogical trip, the talk of a double dip has been unavoidable these few days past. I feel compelled to respond.

Once again, most of the commentary you’ve been hearing makes as much sense as gibberish. Need I say why?

Is this in any way related to The American Dream? You can bet your bottom and your dollar.

Let’s just quickly remind ourselves that our all-time favorite double-dip was in 1937. After using a watered-down form of Keynesian Economics to almost pull us out of the recession, FDR was convinced by the scaredy-cats to balance the budget. Just look at the graph.

Here it is in a capsule: In bad times the economy suffers from a lack of cash flow. You can’t supply it. The banks (presently sitting on $2 trillion) refuse to supply it and business either can’t get a loan or is afraid to supply it until the economy recovers (hurray for the capitalist risk-takers).

That means government goes into debt during the bad times. The Republicans’ and Blue Dog Democrats’ economic ignorance insists on a balanced budget, as they did in 1937. No one who believes what they profess to believe belongs in a responsible position in government or the private sector. Take one daily, or as needed.

Anyway, this time, that is only a part of the problem. Japanese refer to the 1990s as the “Lost Decade.” They went into a recession that lasted for about 10 years. We seem destined to do the same, but only in a small part for the same reasons.

I just couldn’t resist the juxtaposition of the expected economic results of a major party responsible for it with his identifying initial.

The fact that a graph of the actual results of his incompetence won’t really match his initial doesn’t detract from the humor. We can’t afford to let any chance to smile pass us by, even if it comes from a sort of gallows humor. Well, back to predicting the future.

While there continues to be the very real danger from the Neanderthals, what should be seen as our major problem is The American Dream. What is everyone saying is our primary priority? Jobs.

This week’s stumble in the stock market is based on the latest housing report. Last month saw the biggest decline in housing since we moved out of caves. It isn’t just the number of people working in the housing sector, as noted in a previous part, it holds the biggest part of our financial system hostage.

Until the housing market rebounds, or slowly crawls back up on its walker, the economy can’t recover; at least recover the way we prefer.

Obama made a major mistake. He compromised on the stimulus and cooperated with his predecessor on crafting the bailout. He should have held out for a rational stimulus program. The $250 rebate was not stimulative. Every compromise he made to get votes for the bill weakened its ability to stimulate.

If he had stood his ground and let the professional simpletons block the stimulus we would have seen, have experienced the results of the block-heads. It would have been a great object lesson. He would not be bothered any longer by the little pests snipping at his heels. He could have actually increased his majorities in the House and Senate.

But, you say, it would have caused great pain to the general population. True. The fact is that we have luxuriated in the debt economy for 30 years. We have to pay the bill. It is way past due. Pain will accompany the necessary corrections. The pain can come quickly or slowly. It can come now or later. Whatever, whenever, it must come. The devil wants his due.

I was just trying to express the point that by letting the people whose bizarro economic nonsense got us into this mess try to get us out, the point would be made so clearly only the 18% that doesn’t hate Congress would fail to be disabused of these irrational, perverted verities. It would be painful but help us avoid so much more pain in the future.

The odds are that you know someone who wants or needs to sell their house but can’t in the present market. You may know or know of someone who has lost their job. There have been millions of foreclosures. There are millions more in the pipeline. Each one was The American Dream. Each one represents a dream lost, a dream replaced by a nightmare.

The dream is so deeply ingrained in us that it is entangled with our psyche. It is tied to our perception of our own worth. We lose the dream, we see ourselves as a failure.

Others see us as a failure; even our loved ones. Moving into a rental or an apartment that better suits our needs cannot assuage the hurt, the loss.

But, let’s return to those millions and millions of houses flooding the market. There aren’t enough buyers. Qualified buyers with access to mortgages are even rarer.

This being the case, how do prices rise to boost our economy? They don’t; at least not for a long time. Remember Japan. The government can allay some of the worse aspects of this mess. The government can eventually get us back to what can be described as a recovery but not today, not tomorrow, not in time for the next election.

The American Dream had, indeed still has, its appeal but that appeal comes at a steep price. Our mistake was in only looking at one side of the coin, the shiny side. The housing market has become not the engine that drives our economy, rather the drag.

As a supertanker may take miles to make a U-turn, size similarly bars any degree of agility to the housing market. Our economy is not sufficiently diversified. There are no other sectors that can readily compensate.

We used to have a large manufacturing base. We starved it, then shipped it overseas. I often wonder why those who saw industry moved from the rust belt to the bible belt never realized just how movable our jobs were.

As an aside, the latest surveys show that American-made cars are in the lead for quality. That may be temporary or not. The lesson to be learned is that no one stole manufacturing from us. We gave it away.

Actually, that particular we should be defined as all of the greedy, self-congratulating, overly well-remunerated idiots in charge of our corporations and their toadies inside the Beltway. Manufacturing, on a base as broad as this country, was so diversified as to avoid the concentration of the financial engine that we have with housing.

How we accomplish the blood-letting necessary in our real estate market to rid ourselves of that burden I don’t know, beyond patience. At some point we will need to refocus the economy to metropolitan centers and rural towns.

We will need to develop more urban transit. We will need to address other needs of infrastructure. We will need to change the face of America. We will need to change The American Dream.

Forget all of the talk about a double dip. That may happen. It may not. Either way the recovery will be long. Think in terms of a decade, not in quarters.

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First, let me reiterate my detestation for all ideologies and labels. To the extent that I use them in this post, it seems necessary and is for the convenience of the reader.

The imminent retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens highlights the problems caused by both. Stevens is commonly referred to as the most liberal Justice on the Supreme Court. He hates being so described.

Stevens was, and remains, a lifelong Republican. He was nominated by a Republican president, Gerald Ford in 1975. But, he and his retirement are just the impetus. This post is about far more.

Why is a Republican called the most liberal member of the Court? Well, it seems that terms such as liberal, conservative, left, right, capitalism, socialism, even populism are thrown around willy-nilly by people who think they know what these words mean.

The right of privacy is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution or its Amendments. However, through the years the Supreme Courts have firmly stated and reconfirmed that it is such a basic right that many other protections that are included would be meaningless without it. They have ruled that it is an implicit right.

Justice Stevens followed that tenet in his opinion in re the Patriot Act. The ‘conservative’ members of the Court just ignored their own claims of conserving the Constitution.

In the recent decision to give corporations free speech, Justice Stevens did something almost unheard of. He not only dissented; he actually read his dissent aloud in the courtroom. He felt that the Declaration and Constitution were clear in their intent when stating “We the People” and “government of, by and for the people.”

As Justice Stevens himself noted, with the single exception of Ruth Ginsburg, every departing member of the Court, since Stevens himself came aboard, was replaced by someone to his or her right.

I have written before of the Founding Fathers’ fear that corporations would destroy their work. Here again, the ‘conservatives’ ignored the Constitution. It makes you wonder if you understand the meaning of the title they claim of being “Strict Constructionists.”

If ‘Constitutional scholars’ have wandered so far away from the Constitution, we common folk may be excused for being less than precise in our usage.

I find it odd that people are so drawn to the label of conservative, given the politicians who claim it today. The original conservatives were the supporters of the king’s prerogatives. The Founders were on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

The king claimed the right of his troops to be boarded in your home. Our Constitution proscribes that practice.

The king preferred that people not criticize him openly. The Constitution says we can criticize George III or George W.

The Founding Fathers not only were progressive, they stated that times would change. They devised a document that allowed for our social and political progress. They were certain that we would improve upon their situation, their conditions and their document. They themselves were no strict constructionists. Oddly, to be a strict constructionist one would have to be against strict construction. One would have to be a progressive. Oooh. There. I said it.

Back in the 1980s a nationwide survey of historians was taken as to the greatest Senator of all time. The winner was Robert “Fighting Bob” Lafollette. He received this signal honor about 60 years after his death in 1925. Lafollette became a Senator in 1906 and died in office. Prior to that he was the Governor of Wisconsin. Prior to that he was a member of the House of Representatives.

Lafollette was a Republican. So, why was he held in such high esteem? Most people credit another Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, with first promoting universal health care in the 1912 platform of the Bull Moose Party. Lafollette did it earlier. He also suggested unemployment insurance, social security and a host of other measures, some which appeared in FDR’s administration, some which have yet to appear.

How could a Republican other than Teddy Roosevelt be so liberal? Well, he wasn’t. He felt that conservative values meant that the benefits of our system should be broadly enjoyed. He felt an (perhaps Christian) obligation toward the well-being of his fellow Amercians.

He felt that America, its democracy, its protections, its potential, should not be denied to his fellow citizens. He thought America was too good, too great to be seen as selfish and stingy. He felt that as more people benefited from America’s system, the easier it was to conserve that system.

Lafollette wanted to conserve the benefits and promise of America. For that, he was fondly remembered and honored by those of the fraternity that keeps the record of our achievements and our failures.

At some point, conservatism became almost solely about conserving the treasure and prerogatives of the wealthiest among us. An article of faith was that government should be small. Why? Because a small government cost less but, more importantly, a small government had insufficient power and resources to interfere with their ‘Robber Baron’ activities and their credit default swaps.

Later, it subsumed the idea that to preserve all of that it was necessary to be isolationist. It also so feared the Bolshevik Revolution that it branded any deviation from laissez-faire capitalism as communist, socialist, anti-American, liberal, union, et al. It wasn’t necessary to understand any of those things. It was only necessary to have a knee-jerk reaction to any word the plutocrats told us was bad.

As this restrictive perversion of conservative began to wane, after the embarrassment of Joe McCarthy, the true believers realized they needed an infusion of bodies and money. They had finally realized that the military-industrial complex could be a goldmine. It could also co-opt the label of patriotism

Have you ever wondered why a Republican President, a 5-star general warned us against that group? Could it be that he still considered himself a real conservative? Did you ever wonder why the John Birch Society and its descendents called Ike a communist dupe; why they questioned his patriotism while advertising their own?

Where to get the people? Lyndon Johnson gave them a present. He was able to get civil rights acts passed. There go the racists.

Then there was Roe v. Wade. Then there was prayer in the schools. That caused the social conservatives to go looking for champions. They now had the numbers to go with their financial resources.

But who was running the show? Was it the social conservatives? No. They just provided the volume. The tune was still called by the ones that paid the piper. The plutocrats and their prosti . . . er, politicians worked in close harmony.

The new conservatives commandeered the Republican Party. They told the social conservatives they would overturn Roe v. Wade. They would put God back in the classroom. They would . . . Well, did they? Not just yet. After all it’s only been about 50 years.

With the Republican ‘conservatives’ enjoying electoral success, why were these promises not kept? If these new conservatives had actually accomplished these things, they would no longer have the means of motivating the troops. If the voters who had been convinced that their leaders were really conservatives felt that everything was right with the world, they wouldn’t need to come down to the polling booth. Those politicians would lose their faithful. They would lose their jobs. Better to keep them angry and going to the polls than actually come across on the promises.

Along came a spider. A part of those controlling the ‘conservative movement’ thought, “Why not control the world?” These were largely macho draft dodgers and other wannabes who thought war was as portrayed in John Wayne movies. We call them neoconservatives.

They believe that everything they dislike domestically can be overrun through bluff, bluster and making up the rules as they go along. They believe that everything they dislike internationally can be gotten rid of by a crude use of America’s supposedly unlimited military might. Unsurprisingly, they think of themselves as realists, as smarter than average.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of conservatism, beyond how it is being used and who is using it. In the form exercised by many in the past it has much to commend it. But, it has been commandeered by the political dregs of the country as a method of fooling large numbers in order to obtain and maintain control.

I can easily identify with many conservative precepts. Similarly, I can do the same with liberal and progressive. I cannot identify with capitalism, communism, socialism and such. They are tools to be used by people who understand them and their limitations. I feel most comfortable calling myself a populist but not in the sense that far too many use it. I see a bifurcation of those whose highest priority is people (Populists) and those whose highest priority is corporations (Fascists).

Take your pick. There are those two. There is room for conservative, liberal and progressive inside populism. There is only room for plutocrats, politicians and dupes among the fascists.

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The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, claims that he is doing God’s work. Has God retired? Is God not upset with Lloyd for causing his 401K to tank?

Wouldn’t you like to get a peek at God’s portfolio? Such gems of wisdom from one of the Masters of the Universe generates lots of questions.

If Goldman Sachs’ own stock is down 27% and they helped put the global economy in shambles, just why are they giving each other record bonuses? Did the Keystone Cops get bonuses?

Wall Street is congratulating itself that the Dow-Jones has once again reached the 10,000 mark. Since the last time that the Dow surpassed that mark the Dollar has weakened by 25%. That means 10,000 is actually the equivalent of 7,500 back at that time. That gives them even less excuse to bestow record bonuses upon themselves.

No matter how we look at the performances of the Wall Street economists, they are greedy, self-congratulating, ignorant thieves who have never gotten it right. So, who does Obama think can solve the problems created by these crooks? These crooks.

Rubin, Summers, Geithner and the rest, need to be arrested, not trusted.

What is the latest economic news from the Cathedral of St. Greenspan? Various sources are saying that the President will address the need to balance the budget in his State of the Union Address. Really? Are there no history books in the Library of Congress?

Ben Bernanke, our illustrious Chairman of the Federal Reserve has been lauded as the ultimate expert on The Great Depression. He is being considered for another term as Chairman. Since he hasn’t contributed anything of value to our economy to this point, couldn’t he speak to the President about the primary lesson all serious inquirers into that period learned? Did he not understand that lesson?

FDR took several dramatic steps to address the problem he faced. Unlike George W. Obama, FDR put most of the emphasis on employment. But, that was not his big mistake. The economy was improving as a result of his boldness. Then, he lost his confidence and listened to the economic troglodytes. In 1937 he attempted to ameliorate the budget deficit.

The result was a double-dip, another recessionary decline, destroying the recovery from the original downturn. Back to today. What are these Wall Street wizards telling Obama to do? They are telling him that the main problem is a potential for inflation. They are telling him to balance the budget.

Let’s just take a minute to look at our situation. The banks are lending only to themselves. Main Street business is not on a spending spree. They aren’t over-hiring or over-expanding. People have tightened their belts, trying to pay down their debt. The banks can get all of the money they want at a very reasonable interest rate of zero.

So, where are the signs that the inflationary monster is bearing down on us? I can’t hear you.

You don’t stop stimulating the economy until it can sustain itself and is beginning to put more money into the Treasury than it is taking out.

Also, you don’t stimulate the economy by giving tax cuts, the most inefficient of stimuli. You don’t stimulate the economy by giving the Wall Street casinos taxpayers’ money to pay off foreign gamblers 100 cents on the dollar for their derivatives. You don’t salvage the economy buy giving the crooks zero percent loans, after paying off all of their gambling losses.

All of the happy talk from the thieves tries to convince us, or themselves, that the Great Recession is over. When pressed, they will tell you that employment always lags behind the “real” recovery. Does Obama not see a problem? There is a disconnect, a chasm, between the Dow-Jones Average and the economy of Main Street.

How could there possibly be a difference? Isn’t the Dow-Jones the economy? Well, that’s what they want you to believe. As I have been saying all along, the Dow-Jones Average could be replaced with the latest results from Hialeah and Santa Anita with no loss of economic measurement. Some people make money from betting on the horses. Most people lose money from betting on the horses. Wow, that sounds just like Wall Street.

Should the President, any president, invite touts from the major brokerage houses race tracks into the White House, even into his Cabinet, for advice on how to stage an economic recovery? If he did, your first instinct would be to laugh at such stupidity. Then you would realize that his reliance on these denizens of the race tracks was preposterous. You would have to question either his judgment or his intelligence.

There are voices of economic sanity out there. They just aren’t connected to Wall Street. What to do? What should Obama do?

We will not be able to accuse the President of leadership unless he calls Eric Holder to send a few of his minions over to the Executive Office Building, the Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, et alia, to arrest the “economic advisers.”

You say I bemoan the lack of leadership. Not exactly true. We have leadership. Obama has leadership. The problem is that the leadership is being exercised by criminals whose expertise is convincing others that they know what they are doing, that they are acting in our best interests and that they should be rewarded for their knowledge.

Our Founding Fathers were very perceptive and correct in their apprehensions concerning the capacity of the bankers to destroy the fruits of their labors.

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It appears the leader is being led.

Obama has kicked out Paul Volcker, the closest thing to a sane voice on his team of economic do-dos.

He is reportedly sending 40,000 more of our young to be wasted in Afghanistan. He long ago abandoned any pretense of leadership or backbone in the farcical pursuit of healthcare reform. And he expects sane people to support his every capitulation to the financial, health and military oligarchs?

Obama needs to look back at Jimmy Carter for a lesson in leadership. No, I don’t mean emulate Carter. I mean Carter presents an object lesson. As Obama might say, “This is a learning moment.”

Carter was trained as an engineer. He had the mindset of an engineer, not a politician. Carter’s approach was to try a method to solve a problem. If it didn’t work, try something else. Do you remember the outcome of his way? He was labeled a “waffler.”

Now, look at Nixon, Reagan and W. Even though they promoted policies that frequently went against the wishes of the country, as expressed in the polls, they got their way. How? Why?

After Nixon the people thought they wanted someone who was not a strong leader. They got Gerald Ford. That next election their choice was between two candidates that were seen as nice guys but not strong leaders. After Carter’s term they gravitated to someone seen as a strong leader.

It’s a matter of follow the leader. We have discovered that, although Obama is accomplished at inspiring a crowd, he has yet to prove he can lead it.

He has given a free hand to the financial cabal led by Goldman Sachs. I think his instincts in this area are at least partially correct. They just are not fully conceived. Whatever, he fails to lead. He relies on those who caused the global meltdown to provide the remedy. It seems obvious to everyone else that they brought us to this point because of the idiotic ideology they have held since birth. Is there reason to believe they have gone through a massive, intense re-education in the past few months?

Obama is sending another 40,000 units of cannon fodder to Afghanistan. Why? Because a “military expert” says we need them to give the most corrupt government on Earth a chance to succeed. Really? How long will that take? 400 years? 700 years? Once again, Obama is not taking the reins. He is following, not leading.

His inability or failure to lead is most obvious in the realm of healthcare reform. First, he learned the wrong lessons from the Clinton fiasco. He learned that the Clintons had put together a plan and presented it to the Congress. So, he tells the Congress to develop a plan. Has anyone ever accused the Congress of leadership? Have they ever been accused of being able to construct a cogent, workable, real-world plan when left to their own resources?

The lesson to be learned was that the people want something understandable to support. That means it must be simple. Two thousand pages rarely suggests simplicity. You lead by raising your fist and saying, “Follow me.” You don’t lead by using both hands to hoist up a 2,000-page joke and saying, “Vote for this, whatever it is.”

What would work? Try HR 676, Medicare-For-All. That is simple. Medicare took less than 11 months to implement. That was starting from scratch. We now have the structure in place. It just needs to be scaled up. Who could possibly support a plan so complex its supporters claim it requires four years to get up and running?

What to do? The progressives in the House and Senate need to actually carry out their threats. They need to vote down the bills now being considered. No pussyfooting. They need to just do it.

What would the results be? Well, Obama and the Democrats would have egg on their face. They would be seen as being incompetent to run the government. The Republicans would gain some seats in both houses in 2010 but Obama would still be President and the Democrats would still have majorities in both houses. True, they would be slimmer majorities but the Republicans got their agendas through with smaller majorities. It’s just that they exhibited a modicum of leadership.

Obama and the Democrats in Congress have already acquired the reputation of being incompetent to run the government, so that would not be all that different.

If the progressives scuttled those bills, Obama would have to reassess his performance. If he took the reins and showed real leadership, the public would respond. He would still have time to recover and win big in 2012. He might even be fortunate enough to turn his administration around by the mid-term elections. That might be too much to expect but it is possible and could at least minimize the loss of seats in that election cycle.

Obama has the choice. He can learn the right lessons and be mentioned in the same sentences as FDR and LBJ, or he can be the next Carter, a nice guy but one who can’t accomplish the turnaround this nation so sorely needs.

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I finally received a response from Bart Gordon, my Congressman. He totally ignored my request for a debate. Now I know why.

I had challenged him before the August recess. As September has arrived, that means it took him a month to respond. It is obvious from his email that he would have had to come unarmed to any battle of wits. I will present that email as proof. Remember, he sits on the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Dear Crawford,

Thank you for contacting me about national health care reform legislation. Like most hard-working Americans, I believe we need to make health care more affordable for everyone.  But, on an issue this important, it is much better to take the time and get it right than to get it done quickly.  That is why I helped ensure that no bill would be considered in the House this summer.

I am disappointed in his response to the concerns I expressed about healthcare reform. First, I offered to debate him in a public forum during the August recess. There is no mention of that in his email. Also, I find his email regrettable in its lack of consistency, facts and logic.

Notice also that he brags about delaying consideration of any reform bill. Let’s be honest. Delay is no more nor less than the favored tactic of the health industry. He is taking credit for following orders. Teddy Roosevelt  included a universal healthcare proposal as a part of his campaign platform in 1912. FDR proposed it. HST proposed it. JFK proposed it. Jimmy Carter proposed it. Bill Clinton proposed it. And, Bart Gordon thinks we need to take our time. How many have died and will die while Bart diddles?

Currently, we spend one out of every six dollars in the United States on health care, and the cost of health care is rising twice as fast as inflation with no end in sight.  Tennessee’s small business owners and other hard working people are telling me they can’t keep up with the cost of their health insurance premiums.  Insurance costs for small businesses have risen 129% since 2000.  If we do nothing, these costs will further strain families and businesses, and will threaten to bankrupt the country as well.  It will be impossible to cut the national debt unless we deal with health care spending.

So, small businesses, families and the national debt will just have to wait while Bart diddles. Also, notice how he begins speaking of healthcare reform but quickly changes the subject to health insurance.

There are several principles that I believe must be addressed in any health care reform measure: the package must be deficit neutral;

Other than single-payer (HR676), none of the proposals can be deficit neutral without significant tax increases or massive cuts in other necessary programs. Such “savings” as al-PhARMA’s $80 billion concession are silly promises from proven liars. The bulk of that $80 billion goes to seniors in the do-nut hole to buy brand name drugs instead of generics. It will be a bonanza for the drug companies. And, that is only $8 billion per year. The immediate savings of single-payer are more than $400 billion annually from one category alone. Every other plan increases the number of customers, income and profits for AHIP and al-PhARMA. Much of that will cost the government in massive subsidies. The other plans are not deficit neutral. Delay is not deficit neutral. Bart can’t count.

it must make health coverage more affordable for individuals and small businesses;

Eliminating preexisting condition bans will require higher premiums. Requiring small businesses to cover more people doesn’t seem to be a way to make it more affordable. The first point of this paragraph would also apply to individual coverage.

it must ensure coverage is portable when you change or lose your job;

He wants to maintain our traditional method of employer-based plans. Can you imagine the complexities and inefficiencies of making these portable? Will your new employer provide the same plan, or any? Will the government or your former employer pay for your policy while you are unemployed? Some will lose a gold-plated plan along with their job. Others will lose a less attractive plan. Will both plans be maintained? Will there not be cries of that being inequitable?

it must end barriers to coverage for people who get sick or have a pre-existing medical condition; and it must ensure that insurance companies are not able to deny, limit, or specially price your insurance because of a pre-existing condition.

The insurance companies publicly and explicitly promised the Congress that they would accomplish universal coverage and eliminate preexisting condition prohibitions in 1993. Who will guarantee that if not the government?

I do not support a single-payer health care system.  Health care reform must preserve the employer-based health care system so Americans can choose their own doctors and hospitals. No one, including the government or your insurance company, should be able to make life-and-death decisions for you.

Here is where Bart proclaims his devotion to employer-based plans. Why? So that we can choose our own doctors and hospitals. In the past 6 years I have had more than 30 doctors and more than 15 surgical procedures. Nashville is known as a national center for healthcare. Medicare has never questioned any choice of doctor or hospital. I have friends whose private insurance has refused to pay for certain doctors or hospitals. I consider myself knowledgeable enough to find the best doctors in the area. Such nonsense as Bart is spouting are mere scare tactics straight from the lobbyist-supplied playbook of talking points. He is on a government-run healthcare plan. Does it deny him his choices? I think not.

As here, I frequently hear, explicitly or implicitly, that we must preserve our private health insurance system. However, no one has dared to say why. The reason for that lack of an answer is that there is no reason. No health insurance company has ever cured a single malady. They are, however, responsible for innumerable deaths through denial and other forms of rationing. I don’t give a fig for the insurance companies. They add absolutely no value to healthcare.

The best analogy I can come up with for the health insurance industry is the Mafia. If someone comes in and insists that you must pay them 30% of the value of your inventory for protection, you consider that a protection racket, a criminal enterprise. That analogy fails because the Mafia will actually protect you as long as you make payments.

The private insurance companies commonly make life and death decisions for their customers. I have yet to run into that with Medicare. It seems unlikely that people on Medicare would rate their plan more favorably than any other group if the government was trying to kill them. The intended inference is that only single-payer will take those decisions from you. Bart is full of bat feces.

There has been a great deal of misinformation out there.  AARP and other organizations are working to clarify this information. To read about myths and facts related to health care reform, you can visit AARP’s health page at http://www.aarp.org/health.

True. There is a great deal of misinformation out there, and in his email. He and his owners are the ones responsible for promulgating it. He suggests checking with AARP. Does that make sense? AARP receives the bulk of its income from selling insurance and publishing ads for the health industry.

There is no single bill before Congress right now, there are five different health care reform proposals in the House and Senate and several more steps in the legislative process before any legislation will be enacted.

Actually, there are only four bills. The Senate Finance Committee members, aside from the Gang of 6, have been complaining of being kept in the dark. Their bill has not surfaced. Again, Bart can’t count.

Passing no bill at all is better than passing something that makes things worse.

That is a truism. It’s difficult to imagine creating worse than what we presently have but politicians such as Bart are fully capable of pulling it off.

I hope that we can improve the health care system for everyone, and will continue to work with my Democratic and Republican colleagues to accomplish this.

Other than the select group of Blue Dogs, I see no evidence of his working with the Democrats. I hope he is not wasting his time working with the Republicans on this issue.

Thank you again for contacting me.

G

How cutesy.

Sincerely,

BART GORDON

Member of Congress

It should now be obvious why he fails to respond to my challenge.

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Apparently lots of people are as gullible as Charlie Brown. How many of you remember the New York Times‘ poll last month?

The exact question was, “Would you favor or oppose the government’s offering everyone a government-administered health-insurance plan like Medicare that would compete with private health insurance plans?” Seventy-two percent favored such a plan. Twenty percent were ignorant enough to oppose it.

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A level playing field for healthcare reform is a myth. A public option is a scam. Or, maybe it’s a sham. It’s probably both.

I was riding in the car, listening to an interview of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius on the local public radio station. Since I was not taking notes, my recitation of that interview isn’t composed of direct quotes – it is based solely on what remains of my memory.

The interviewer asked Ms. Sebelius if, in order to address the concerns of the opposition, she intended the reform to provide a level playing field. She answered in the affirmative. He then asked if the public option would be so constructed as to not be or ever become a single-payer system. Again, she said yes.

So, not only does the administration intend to put something on the table that is not single-payer, it intends that it never come to pass. That is news to the majority that wants a single-payer system. It is also a slap in the face to those willing to support a public option as a step to an eventual single-payer system.

The “reform” that the administration intends to accomplish is no reform. It is a scam. It is another gift to the insurance and drug corporations a la Medicare Part D. Why not let those industries write the bill the way al-PhARMA wrote Part D?

There is no such thing as a level playing field. This is not a game.

CMS is the agency that pays the bills for Medicare, Medicaid and the Chilren’s Health Insurance Program. It spends 1.8 cents of every dollar for administration. Private health insurance companies are in the 30-32% range.

To make private plans competitive would mean artificially increasing a public option’s premiums by 30% just to level the playing field for that single factor. That means that those with the public option would be subsidizing the private corporations by an amount greater than their already unconscionable profits.

Every Democratic president since FDR has tried to provide us with universal healthcare. We have an historic confluence of forces that now make it possible and this is what we get?

Just putting those presently uninsured, that iconic 47 million souls, on a public option plan would make it larger than any existing private plan. The economies of scale would put the private plans at a further disadvantage. The power of a plan of such size also would provide it with more bargaining power, even if not combined with the CMS. That means the private plans would be at an even greater disadvantage.

The public option would, supposedly, be available to many others besides those presently uninsured. Unless we further subsidize the private corporations, they stand far less of a chance than the proverbial snowball in Dante’s Inferno.

We would not be considering this subject at all had the private insurance and drug corporations not screwed up healthcare delivery so royally. Are these incompetent leeches worth trillions of dollars of premiums and tax subsidies? Are they worth saving? Does President Obama consider their continued obscene profits and deadly game playing more worthy of his support than those who pinned their hopes, even their lives and well-being on him during the campaign and the early months of his presidency?

What I have written to this point has focused primarily on dollars. What about the lives to be lost or destroyed by what would essentially be little more than a continuation of the present failed system? Is overwhelming bipartisan support from the public worth less than a possible handful of votes from Republican Senators?

Obama has the opportunity to accomplish what FDR, LBJ and WJC, with all of their political skills, could not. He has the opportunity to provide an historic service to the people of America. He also has the opportunity to fritter it all away.

There was no bipartisanship behind Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Those issues were more important than kow-towing to a small group of professional naysayers. So is a universal, single-payer healthcare system. It is the only real reform. Public options, co-ops and all of the other scams are nothing more than diversions.

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If you were the one who read my post entitled Upside Down, you may have noticed a commenter who shares my aversion to brevity. I mentioned that I had no intention of prolonging the discussion but he wrote back anyway.

I was impressed by his total misjudgment of me, as well as how far off the mark were his definitions. I decided to offer his most recent comment with my opinions and corrections. Although edited for length and tedium, I have not, I think, done violence to his missive.

I may be wrong, but you sound just like a Blue Dog Democrat formerly known as “Yellow Dog Democrats”, i.e., “I’d vote for a Yellow Dog before I’d vote for a Republican”.

Yes, you are wrong, on more than one count. I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. The Democrats have no homogeneous perspective. That hinders effective action. The Republicans rely on simpleminded cant that has been proven harmful. I am a populist.

There were many ‘Yellow Dog Democrats.’ They were so grateful for what FDR did for them and so angry at what the Republicans did to them that they would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for a Republican. They are much fewer in number now as memory fades and that generation is dying out. ‘Blue Dog Democrats’ are those who consider themselves social Democrats but see themselves as fiscally conservative. It is not a matter of “formerly known as.” There was no semantic change.

Many, of course, have converted to “realism”, a realization that the electorate was moving away from “loyalty oaths” and complete Democratic control.

I have tried to make sense of that sentence, without success. There is no complete Democratic control, although the electorate moved in that direction, not away. I am unaware of any loyalty oaths, other than to the Constitution.

And I can talk until I’m blue in the face about the astounding turn of fiscal events in America and not change it one whit. I use the word “astounding” with all the power that word conjures up. “New ground,” as we say in the South, “is being plowed.” I just hope we all will not be plowed under.

It’s true the economy will not change dependent upon the color of your face. I fail, however, to see the situation as astounding. The general outline of the failure of regressive economics was predictable. The speed with which it became generally apparent was a bit surprising but, since it began in 1981, it took longer than competent economists might have expected to hit us with its full force.

We will be plowed under if we depend on the private sector to correct the problem. Every policy implemented by the Hoover Administration was in line with such laissez faire nonsense. Every policy they tried drove the economy deeper into the toilet.

Okay, let’s drop the debate about FDR’s Great Depression. I lived through it and knew nothing of the politics involved although I remember liking Wendell Willkie very much. But it seems a shame that the depression lingered on for far too long. The question of “why” is an issue we do not agree on.

I was also a child of the Depression. I scavenged and sold scrap metal for a penny a pound during WWII. I still do not understand the need for reference to Willkie but do understand how a child of that age might be impressed by him. The Depression lingered because of more than 3 years of Hoover’s regressive policies, FDR’s going off course momentarily at the end of his first term and the domino effect of the Smoot-Hawley protectionist act of 1930.

Unlike you who have actually served in elective office (I did try, though) and who apparently did not read the legislation you approved (who has the time to read all that “stimulus package” stuff anyway?) I was keenly aware of pending legislation, how my opponent voted and what were the likely consequences of that vote.

Holding political office is far more than reading and voting on legislation. It is listening to and aiding constituents. It is explaining options and policies. It is a myriad of non-glamorous, non-public tasks. Staff is there to find and point out positives, problems and gotchas. Too many politicians are overly engrossed in getting reelected or padding their bank account to read legislation. Whatever the reason, those thousands of pages of legalese are seldom read by the politicians. Sorry, but that is the real world.

One other correction: Wilson Dam was operational before 1942 and it was the center of the most significant vote on TVA’s constitutionality in 1938.

My bad. Wilson Dam was the first operational dam for TVA. It was built between 1918 and 1924 and acquired by TVA in 1933. Those built by TVA started coming on line in 1942. I am uncertain as to how you construe “most significant” and why the constitutionality of a dam built by the government 20 years previously would be so characterized.

Here’s how the TVA is a reminder that government alone can get us out of this recession (near depression). While TVA provided some good construction but short-term jobs there was nothing left to sustain that work just as the CCC and other make-work programs when finished left no on-going economic base. Only private enterprise can do that.

TVA continues to provide nearly 13,000 jobs 76 years after it was created. Thousands upon thousands have retired from TVA. TVA does not sell power directly to the public. It sells to public utilities. Those utilities employ even more people than does TVA. Building the economy of the Valley made it attractive to private enterprise that would otherwise not have come in. By the way, FDR first begged private enterprise to build it. They refused.

Since private enterprise was decreasing, then as now, they weren’t producing any jobs, much less good jobs. CCC and other programs created a significant part of the infrastructure we have enjoyed for 70 years but now needs replacing. Those programs put money into the economy that allowed people to purchase goods and services from private enterprise. Ask those 5 million plus waiting for their unemployment checks if private enterprise creates permanent jobs.

Though not under FDR, the Interstate System created jobs, infrastructure and private enterprise opportunities. Perhaps you should temporarily suspend your lack of faith in government and ride on it, or use electricity from the power grid FDR provided, or even take a flight along the byways the FCC created. If you want to have a picnic, check the weather. Those things are nice, even though they don’t provide jobs as private enterprise does.

And one last question – where does the money to pay for all these grandiose public projects come from? If you say government, that only can mean the printing of more money and more taxes. Obama seems to think you can get blood from a stone.

All legal American money comes from the government. That other stuff is called counterfeit. When the economy gets smaller, we can let it stay small (permanent depression) or pump money into it. The problem would not have been so massive if not for the debt accumulated via spending and tax cuts when the economy had no need of stimulation. Obama may be right. He may be wrong. But, he certainly can’t get jobs out of private enterprise right this moment.

And oh yes, have you heard one mention of the U.S. Constitution in any of his statements?

I often heard Bush and others in his administration speaking of the Constitution, as though they were familiar with it. Obama’s day job was as a professor of Constitutional Law. He knows it. He is comfortable with it. What is the Constitutional problem anyway? Is it unConstitutional to spend money? What about lowering taxes for 95% of the people? Bringing the troops home, perhaps? Is it unConstitutional to be a Democrat?

Sorry, I missed the “The Rocky Horror …etc.” movie. I’m waiting for the flick that some brave producer will come up with, Ayn Rand’s masterpiece, Atlas Shrugged. You might want to re-read the book in light of present circumstances; Orwell’s”1984” also.

One person’s masterpiece is another person’s drivel. The movie is tentatively scheduled for production in 2011. The shadow of plaigerism still hangs over the book as it has quite a bit in common with a book published in 1922. There is no reason to reread it. It’s lack of coherence or  connection to logic and reality has not changed, regardless of present circumstances.

One more thing, I am not “obsessed” as you clinically infer with the TVA. But I do have a passion for the U.S. Constitution and the implications another “TVA” might have on American society.

I apologize for characterizing you as obsessed with TVA. Looking again at your web site, it was only the first 51 articles that were devoted to that subject.

The Crusader

P.S.

If you print this I’ll know that you still are listening (ha!)

Are you sure that you want me to listen?

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Someone asked me a question this morning in the locker room of the YMCA. As I was responding, someone else chimed in that the cause of all of our economic problems was that FDR had abandoned the gold standard.

I tried to come up with as humorous a retort as I could that early. It seemed that it would be an in-kind response. Whoops. He was serious. Facts and logic had no effect.

Television commentators, politicians, Joes of various occupations, denizens of the locker room, kindergarten undergraduates. We are unbelievably fortunate to have so many experts on economics at this time of crisis.

We are fortunate that expertise in that subject doesn’t require years of study, double-digit I.Q.s, dictionary definitions and all that other unimportant folderal. I wish I had known. I could have saved myself all of that time, effort and money.

I do wonder, however, if it has been that easy, why all of these people waited until the economy tanked before showcasing their mastery of the subject? If increasing the marginal tax rate on the top 5% from 35 to 39 point something will have such disastrous results, why do we have fewer wealthy people and wealthy people with less wealth now, after Bush reduced those taxes?

Under Clinton, with that higher tax rate, the economy grew and we had a record surplus. With the lower rate the surplus became a record deficit.

Under Clinton, the poor and middle class made moderate gains. Since the tax cut for the wealthy, the poor are getting poorer and the size of the middle class has shrunk.

This morning I saw that champion of the poor, Tina Brown, wring her hands about how returning the tax rate to what is was when the economy was relatively healthy would mean difficult times for all of those charitable parties she spends her time attending. She feared that fewer could afford to pay $5,000 per table. I find it ironic that the dresses around these $5,000 tables cost far more than the the tables.

My crazy take on this is that charities are actually being hurt more by the effect the economy is having on the poor. Those classified as poor actually give a higher percentage of their income for charity than do the wealthy. The economy, since the tax cuts enjoyed by the wealthy, has also increased the number of people requiring charity.

If memory serves, the last tax cut amounted to $1.69 trillion. I thought that was a lot of money. It was apparently not enough. Economists have been unable to find any blips in the economy attributable to that cut. Perhaps they should look overseas. Many suspect that a large part of it ended up in foreign accounts. I guess those jobs shipped overseas could use the company, so to speak.

When money is stolen, our expectation is that someone should go to jail. When lives are ruined, we want someone to pay the price. This meltdown has caused incalculable loss and misery. Many of those wannabe experts are among the culpable. Yet, no one is headed to court, to prison. We might as well be giving out medals for greed. Should we be surprised if people lose trust in our system, in our leaders?

Do we listen to someone who has stolen from us, when they say that the ensuing problems will all be solved if we permit them to steal even more from us? Rarely. Do we listen when someone whose policies have devastated the world’s economy with greed, tax cuts for the miscreants, reliance on the mythical invisible hand and deregulation say that all of the problems will be corrected by more of the same? Sadly, too many do.

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